Greer absolutely nails it....

[clv101]

The area is around 50% Welsh speaking, our children go to Welsh medium school.

A serious question. In which language do Welsh medium schools take their GCSE/A-level exams in? I mean in subjects other than Welsh language - say Chemistry or Social Studies etc.

Yep, all in Welsh! Some of the more obscure A-levels are only in English though.

[UndercoverElephant]

This one looks too good to be true. 55 acres of land and a quarry, for less than £500K? A bit out of the area we are looking in, but eye-catching.

https://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural- ... _16776691/

This is really what we're after though: https://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural- ... 00_559009/

The roof on picture 23 of the first property looks totally shot.

As long as that isn't the house itself, that wouldn't bother us.

The possibility of tinkering and pottering about in those outbuildings is almost infinite.

Better go for the former corn mill in the second property, though I could not see any sign of the mill equipment.

The whole property looks fascinating. And the fact it is available in parts is also attractive, since we don't want any farm buildings.

Shame we aren't ready to move.

[eyeswide]

Hello, this is Geoff's wife Cathy, long time no see. He asked me to read this thread, and thank you all so much, it's extremely helpful.

Can I ask - have any of you had the experience of putting an English-speaking child into a Welsh-medium school? And how was that?

She'll be 4/5 at the time. I'm going to try and teach some basics at home before moving, but as a non-Welsh-speaker myself, it'll be limited.

[clv101]

We are an English speaking family (I'm English, wife is Scottish, kids are Welsh), however both my wife and I have had several years of Welsh lessons (she even aced an exam two years ago, before covid disrupted our lessons). I'm still a beginner really but she's an advanced learner. Our 5 year old goes to Welsh medium primary, started there for afternoons at 3 year old, full time at 4. Her Welsh is perfect (for a 5 yo), she's forever correcting our pronunciation and grammar and she's more confident reading and writing Welsh than English at this stage. It's easier as spelling is entirely regular and phonetic, once you know the rules, you can read and pronounce everything.

Around half the kids in the school are from English speaking families, starting at 4-5 it literally only takes a few months for them to pick up the language. We think it's absolutely vital for the kids to be totally confident Welsh speakers.

The Welsh language TV station S4C (on iPlayer) is brilliant. All through lockdown the kids were watching an hour of kids programmes in Welsh every day - this exposure is great for becoming familiar with the sound of the language.

[eyeswide]

@clv101

Thanks, that's reassuring. I've always loved learning languages, and always found it fairly easy (though my brain was, of course, younger then!), so I'm not too put off by that.

I've just taken a look at S4C and seen they have Peppa Pig... this could be a winner.

So would you say there is any chance that starting school age 4/5, she would be the only kid in the class who couldn't speak Welsh? It sounds like being there at the very start of primary school would be wise.

[UndercoverElephant]

We are an English speaking family (I'm English, wife is Scottish, kids are Welsh), however both my wife and I have had several years of Welsh lessons (she even aced an exam two years ago, before covid disrupted our lessons). I'm still a beginner really but she's an advanced learner. Our 5 year old goes to Welsh medium primary, started there for afternoons at 3 year old, full time at 4. Her Welsh is perfect (for a 5 yo), she's forever correcting our pronunciation and grammar and she's more confident reading and writing Welsh than English at this stage. It's easier as spelling is entirely regular and phonetic, once you know the rules, you can read and pronounce everything.

Around half the kids in the school are from English speaking families, starting at 4-5 it literally only takes a few months for them to pick up the language. We think it's absolutely vital for the kids to be totally confident Welsh speakers.

The Welsh language TV station S4C (on iPlayer) is brilliant. All through lockdown the kids were watching an hour of kids programmes in Welsh every day - this exposure is great for becoming familiar with the sound of the language.

You are on the border of the English-speaking area though. We are looking further north than there, where the proportions are likely to be more Welsh, right?

[UndercoverElephant]

@clv101

Thanks, that's reassuring. I've always loved learning languages, and always found it fairly easy (though my brain was, of course, younger then!), so I'm not too put off by that.

I, on the other hand, are very much unilingual. It will be a steep learning curve for me if I learn Welsh.

[emordnilap]

Cat's point of renting - for a year, or even longer - whilst scouting for a location is worth repeating. There's prevailing weather and shelter from it, general orientation of land and buildings, drainage, access to facilities, security, soil type amongst other things. Not least, you can spend time asking other blow-ins what problems they encountered.

Sorry, but moving twice is simply not an option for us. I understand why it has its attractions, but it is also a massive pain in the arse. [edit: we have a dog and a cat, a daughter who will be just about to start school, and I have a collection of unusual plants. We also don't earn much money, so we would be burning through capital all the time we rent.]

It's probably a better option if you're actually moving to another land mass rather than stay within the same one, I suppose: at least you can visit an area without relocating. I've encouraged many who were thinking of moving to Ireland (or anywhere distant) to rent first: it may cost more but saves money in the long run by the Irish willingness to negotiate!

Good luck with your move.

[Catweazle]

We are an English speaking family (I'm English, wife is Scottish, kids are Welsh), however both my wife and I have had several years of Welsh lessons (she even aced an exam two years ago, before covid disrupted our lessons). I'm still a beginner really but she's an advanced learner. Our 5 year old goes to Welsh medium primary, started there for afternoons at 3 year old, full time at 4. Her Welsh is perfect (for a 5 yo), she's forever correcting our pronunciation and grammar and she's more confident reading and writing Welsh than English at this stage. It's easier as spelling is entirely regular and phonetic, once you know the rules, you can read and pronounce everything.

Around half the kids in the school are from English speaking families, starting at 4-5 it literally only takes a few months for them to pick up the language. We think it's absolutely vital for the kids to be totally confident Welsh speakers.

The Welsh language TV station S4C (on iPlayer) is brilliant. All through lockdown the kids were watching an hour of kids programmes in Welsh every day - this exposure is great for becoming familiar with the sound of the language.

You are on the border of the English-speaking area though. We are looking further north than there, where the proportions are likely to be more Welsh, right?

Although the stats for the area point to 50% of people being able to speak Welsh I'd wager that 95% of youngsters can speak English. Welsh language schools can cause problems, I'm told that the difficulty in filling GP and dentist jobs locally is because families with school aged kids don't want to move here.

Starting at 5 yrs old wouldn't be a problem though, and much research has concluded that bi-lingual kids do better academically and socially than their counterparts.

[kenneal - lagger]

This is really what we're after though: https://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural- ... 00_559009/

Not with a barge pole.

Along with around 200 other properties in the area in Oct 2018 this property had ingress of water following the nearby River Cych breaching its banks.
Our client, on the plus side, and as a consequence, has just finished a great deal of work on both properties with the assistance of the insurance company involved which includes the following:

I would agree to not touch anything like that with a barge pole. If it is getting flooded now it will only get more frequent as the years roll by and the world temperature rises. It there was some higher ground where a replacement house could be built I would think about purchasing but it would have to be on the basis of the planners allowing a replacement house. You could even reuse the stone and insulate it on the outside to give a great deal of thermal mass. That with PassivHaus insulation standards would give a beautifully comfortable house.

Alternatively how about raising the house insitu. They can move churches in the Ukraine or Russia so just raising a stone house in Wales should be a cinch!

[Mark]

Alternatively how about raising the house insitu. They can move churches in the Ukraine or Russia so just raising a stone house in Wales should be a cinch!

Nearer to home (Northwich, Cheshire), many of the buildings are built on wooden frames due to ground subsidence from salt mining....
Every few years, the sinking building would be 'jacked up' and a few more rows of bricks added...
https://www.northwich-th.co.uk/history/ ... buildings/

NB - 20yrs ago lots of money was spent to stabilise the salt mines, so this no longer happens....
https://www.northwich-th.co.uk/history/ ... n-project/

[UndercoverElephant]

Any opinion on this one?

https://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural- ... 00_526301/

38 acres of land, 4 bed farmhouse with outbuildings that could be converted into a holiday let, 1 stream, 1 river. 5 miles from Carmarthen. Looks like it should be more than £495K.

[BritDownUnder]

Looks to be on a southerly facing slope. Lots of nice outbuildings to potter around in (I am big into pottering in my spare time). House looks more elevated and less likely to flood. Close to Carmarthen town.

The bad bits to me look like the beams in the house. A lot of worrying dips in the exposed beams in the ceilings of the living rooms. Difficult to tell how old the house is. I am guessing the house is stone built and could be a bit cold but as many say this is one of the warmest parts of the UK.

You might even get a bit of hydro from that river there. It looks like a short river (near to the headwaters) so maybe less chance of bad flooding

Worth a visit though. Take a building inspector with you. I would certainly like to live in such a place. However I would wait for the experts to come online.

[UndercoverElephant]

Thanks for the reply. I think we prefer old houses to new ones, and given we want a smallholding then an old house is very likely what we'll end up with. As long as it isn't listed, we can cope with that. Listed buildings are a pain in the arse.

[clv101]

Give serious consideration to building new. Old houses like above will ALWAYS suffer from cold and damp, or be ruinously expensive to heat. Coming from the east as you are it's hard to appreciate the difference west Wales' much higher winter humidity has.

I took a very hands on approach with our build but know many people round here who outsourced the whole build. Even one guy with a passive house 'prefab'. It was made in Scandinavia somewhere came on a couple of trucks with half a dozen builders and was pretty much *done* inside a month. It's stunning, really high quality, comfortable and super efficient.